


Stranger Things Have Happened

by DragonThistle



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Blood, Bodyswap, Deal With the Devil, Older!Mystery Twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-20 10:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2425598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonThistle/pseuds/DragonThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been six years since Dipper and Mabel first came to Gravity Falls. Now they have their own occult shop and practice magic on a near regular basis. But Dipper still isn't satisfied. He still doesn't know all the answers and he still hasn't solved the mysteries of Gravity Falls. But answers come a little easier when you've got an all knowing demon on your side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

_\-----_

_magic [noun]; (1)a quality that makes something seem removed from everyday life, esp. in a way that gives delight; (2)the power of apparently influencing the course of event by using mysterious or supernatural forces_

\-----

Mabel found her twin in the attic room they still shared above the Mystery Shack, hunched over his desk with the needle buzzing across his upper left arm. They might have grown up a lot since that first summer in Gravity Falls but, if anything, their adventures since then had only drawn them closer together. They still shared the room, they still helped each other out of whatever sticky situation they had gotten into, and they still bickered like the siblings they were.

"Hey, Dips, when you're done there I need to talk to you about inventory." Mabel skipped over to her bed, leaping over her baskets full of yarn and half finished projects, "I think I need some restocks; some of those charms sell really fast." She flopped onto the edge of her bed, smoothing out her long, pleated skirt and looking up at the back of her brother's head with a smile, "You in?"

"Mm, sure." Dipper grunted, intent on his task, his left arm was stretched out in front of him, his right hand holding the tattooing needle that was carefully tracing in a symbol that was starting to fade.

It was only recently that Dipper had started retouching his tattoos on his own. He still needed someone else to do the ones on his back but he'd taken over the ones on his arms and chest. They were numerous, intricate, and delicately placed and carefully cared for. Symbols for protection and spell casting, circles for binding or repelling, runes for rapid healing and extra strength; these were all etched with careful precision across Dipper's thin, wiry frame, all across his back, over his chest, and halfway down his arms. One wrong symbol in the wrong place or one line faded too much on a circle and it could spell disaster. It had taken Dipper a year of solid straight research to figure out a layout for the spells and runes that wouldn't make him spontaneously combust.

It had taken him another year to work up the courage to apply them to his own skin.

Now, six years after that first summer, he was more than well practiced at dealing with the ink and needle.

"Done!" Dipper crowed, dropping the needle carefully back into its stand and shaking his arm. He flexed his fingers, bent his arm a couple of times, and then got to his feet. He'd shot up like a weed over the years, growing tall and thin, a twig with wiry muscles and an acrobat's body. He stood a good head over Mabel.

"Great! Now let's get to the shop! Those charms won't make themselves!" His sister leapt off the bed, bouncing across the room with all the enthusiasm she'd had when they were twelve to grab his wrist.

"Hey, hey! Mabel! Shirt! I need a shirt!" Dipper wriggled out of her grasp and snatched up his T-shirt from the bed that was piled high with papers and notebooks. He yanked it over his head, untucked a necklace from underneath, and then snatched up his jacket from the back of the desk chair, "Okay _now_ we can go. Who'd you leave in charge of the place if you're over here, anyway?"

"Oh, Candy's watching it for me!" Mabel replied cheerily, leading the way down the creaky old steps, "Grenda's still out of town and Wendy's, well, you know, _here_. Hey, did you talk to Grunkle Stan about that shipment of red jasper that was supposed to come in?"

"Yeah, he said it was on it's way. When I asked him about tracking numbers he just gave me a weird look." Dipper chuckled, shoving his hands into his pockets, "I'm sure it'll be here soon, don't worry about it. They always get here some way or another."

"You could always scry for iiiittt~" Mabel cooed with a honey sweet smile, looking over her shoulder at her brother.

Dipper's own smile turned into a frown, "Ooohhh no. No way. You know I haven't gotten that quite down yet! No more playing with scrying until I talk to--"

"Kids!" Both twins looked up to see their Gunkle Stan leaning out the door to the gift shop of the Mystery Shack, "Good! I needed to see you. I asked about that order a' yours; made a few calls, tugged a few strings, you know. I guess it's lost in the mail 'cause no one seems to know where it is."

"Wwwhhhaaattt!" Mabel's shoulders slumped, "You're joking, right Grunkle Stan? Of course you're joking! My favorite Great Uncle wouldn't lose one of my hottest selling items in the mail! Haha! No way!"

Said Great Uncle grinned that sheepish grin of his that said he'd put the pig outside again.

Dipper sighed and looked up at the ceiling in a silent plea to the universe. _Why? Why me? Why do you always pick on me?_

"Drop it, Mabel, it'll be okay, you just said so yourself," He said aloud, putting a hand on her shoulder to catch her attention, "Besides, I…if you're really worried about it, I'll…I'll…" He sucked in a breath, "I'll scry for it after we're done with the charms."

"Really!?" Mabel tackled him in a hug and Dipper might have been taller than her but she was denser and she plowed him backwards, almost back up the stairs, "Oooohh thank you, Dipper! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'll knit you another scarf! With looootttsss of demon binding in it!"

"Ahaha, okay, okay, sure. It's not a big deal. I need to practice anyway…" Dipper peeled his sister off of him with a small smile.

"Yeah! Don't want another spell burning your eyebrows off, brobrow!" Mabel chortled. She spun on her heel, saluting Stan with a brilliant smile, "We're going to the shop for a bit! We'll be back later!" And she was out the door before either of them could get a word in.

Dipper shook his head at her enthusiasm and began to follow her out. A heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him and he looked around to see his Great Uncle frowning at him. It was still strange to Dipper to be nearly eye-level with a man he'd looked up to since he was twelve. In a way he had never stopped looking up to him.

"You better be careful with that stuff, Dips." Stan muttered darkly, "I warned you about it and--"

"Grunkle Stan, it's okay. Really. I'm not twelve anymore." Dipper assured him, "I'm a lot more careful than I used to be. And that eyebrow thing was _one time_. Never going to happen again."

"It's not the eyebrows I'm worried about, kid. Although it would only hurt your chance of getting a girl."

Dipper felt his cheeks color slightly, "Grunkle Stan…"

"Don't gimme that tone of voice, you know I don't like that thing in my house, under my roof! And to see you and Mabel toting it around--"

"Can we not argue about this for once?" Dipper said and he was colder than he meant to be, his jaw set, his brow furrowed, "You keep bringing this up but neither of us are going to change our minds. And, yeah, I know you just want to protect us but, Grunkle Stan, we're eighteen. We've made our decisions." The young man loosened, his frown turning into something like a sad, longing need for praise,

"We're not doing the things we do because we want to take over the world or get rich or anything. We do it because we want to help people. And we're curious. Well, I know I am, I think Mabel just likes the pretty colors. We…just want you to…to…I, dunno, but whatever we want from you, it's not this."

Stan was looking hard at Dipper, features set in a hard frown. He squinted at his nephew, searching his face for something. Then he turned away, waving his hand dismissively,

"Bah! I don't do chick flick moments! And if you're gonna lecture _me_ , kid, you're gonna have to do better 'in that." He shot a glance over his broad shoulder, jabbing his 8-ball topped cane in Dipper's direction, "I tolerate you two livin' under my roof 'cause you're good fer business. But if I catch _one hint_ of voodoo, hoodoo, or any other kind of spell flinging in my house then you'll be sleeping outside! That clear?"

Dipper grinned and saluted, "Loud and clear, sir!"

"Diiiiipppeeerrrrr!" Mabel shouted from outside and Dipper hurried to the door. He paused on the threshold, fingers catching on the protective runes he'd carved there himself. He glanced back over his shoulder, watching his Great Uncle duck back into the Mystery Shack proper, and swallowed hard.

He knew why Stan was so uneasy about what they did. But it was something that couldn't be helped.

Dipper ducked his head and followed his sister out into the summer sunshine, letting the door swing shut behind him. The bang and click of the handle seemed a little too loud in his ears.

\---- -/o\\- ----

Shaking the numbing tingle of too many cast spells from his fingers, Dipper scooped the last chunk of amethyst out of the box and set it carefully in the center of a symbol covered circle traced in thick ink lines on a journal page. Amethyst wasn't as potent as red jasper but it would do in a pinch. He straightened up in his seat, cleared his throat, and spread his hands out of the circle. But just as he took a breath to start the incantation, the door burst open and Mabel strode in, all layered skirts and glittering bedazzled sweater,

"You done yet, bro-bro?"

Dipper frowned over his shoulder at her, "I was about to do the last one before you burst in. You broke my concentration."

The twins ran a small, quaint little occult shop in the more downtown touristy area of Gravity Falls. Nothing special or extravagant like the Mystery Shack, just a squat little one store brick building with slightly smeary display windows and a faint smell of dust.

Well, to be more accurate, Mabel ran the shop and Dipper occasionally supplied her with charms, spells, and the odd ball trinket. Mabel herself kept the place stocked with hand knitted sweaters, scarves, gloves, and hats there were all carefully woven with all manner of spells and charms. Items in the shop ranged from charms to keep the common cold at bay to demon banishing runes to voice changing potions (the only thing it did not stock were love potions as Dipper went all red in the face and lost his ability to speak coherently when Mabel brought it up).

And, of course, there was a good deal of advertising for the Mystery Shack. Grunkle Stan had leased the building for them on the condition that they would plug the Shack as much as possible. And he also took a cut of the profits. But the twins were perfectly fine with that. They didn't run the shop (Mystery Twins Occult Specialties; a patron of the Mystery Shack) for the money. It was just like Dipper had told Stan. They did it to help people. And because of Dipper's insatiable curiosity.

"Sooorrryyy~" Mabel leaned against a stack of boxes, hands tucked behind her back, "Grunkle Stan called, he wants to know what we should do for dinner. Did you guys fight again?"

Dipper grunted moodily and turned back to the notepad on the floor in front of him. They didn't have enough space for him to set up a proper workshop and since Stan refused to allow spell casting in the Shack, Dipper had to make do with the storage area in the back of their shop. He'd cleared a good space on the floor, though, and he made do with it.

"I wish you guys wouldn't do that…" Mabel murmured, "You know he means well. Both of you know you mean well. Stan's just trying to protect us. He loves us."

"I know, Mabel, I know. I just wish he'd stop treating me like a kid." Dipper raised his hands, hesitated, and then dropped them again, "I'm not the same idiot who summoned the undead. I'm more careful now. And look what I've managed to accomplish! What _we've_ managed to accomplish!"

"Yeah, we're amazing, Dips, now hurry up and finish those defense charms! I wanna eat!"

Dipper scowled at her but there was a smile in his eyes, "Fine, fine. Go wait for me up front, I'm almost done here."

"Actually…can I watch?"

He looked up at Mabel, found her serious, a glitter of excitement in her eyes, and sighed, "Oh, all right, you can watch. But you have to _be quiet_. I'm not perfect at this, it takes a bit of concentration."

Mabel mimed zipping her lips and winked. Dipper rolled his eyes and turned back to his circle. He took a deep breath, held his hands out, and began chanting. It wasn't a complicated spell but it took a bit of concentration. Directing magic at himself or someone else on a spur of the moment was easy but attaching a spell to something in the long term was a little more difficult. However, years of practice (and Mabel's cheerleading) had honed Dipper's skills.

Light spiraled up from the thick lines of the circle, swelling in a gentle spiral around the chunk of amethyst on the paper. Heavy shadows stretched behind Dipper, flickering in the moving, bright red light, sparks arched into the air and then sunk into the stone in front of him. More and more sank in until the amethyst was glowing a fiery red-orange. Dipper's eyes snapped open, glowing the same red as his cast magic, and spoke one sharp, commanding word. The light was sucked into the amethyst and the room dimmed. Dipper's eyes returned to normal and he lowered his hands, scooping up the defense charm and tossing it into the box with the rest of them. Later, Mabel would attach them to bracelets, necklaces, or keychains and sell them.

Dipper got to his feet, dusted off his pants, and stretched his hands to the ceiling until his back popped, "Well, that's that. All done." He reached down and picked up the bowl, the box, and his journal, "Let's get back to the Shack, all that spell throwing made me hungry."

"What about the scrying spell? You were going to look for the red jasper shipment." Mabel swept the box and bowl out of his hands, tucking them under her arm, "I'll take care of tthheeessseeee and you get that spell set up!"

Dipper scowled at her, "Come ooonnn, Mabel, I just cast, like, twenty defense and binding spells! My fingers are numb and I'm hungry!"

"Well you can either do it here or you can do it out in the woods when we get back to the Shack 'cause you know Stan won't let you do it in the house!" Mabel replied cheerfully, beaming at him.

"Uuuhhgggg, ffiiinnneee!" Dipper threw up his hands and dropped his journal back onto the floor, "But you're helping! Go fill that bowl with water and get me that little compact mirror out of the desk drawer."

Mabel hurried out of the room to obey and Dipper crouched down to the floor again. He flipped through the pages of his journal, filled with spells and notes and pages laden with the ink of magic circles. He paused on one page, pulled a stumpy piece of chalk out of his jacket pocket, and, referencing the page of his journal, started drawing a circle on the floor.

When his sister returned with the bowl of water and the mirror, he gently took the bowl and set it in the center of his chalk circle. Then he popped the mirror part out of the compact and pressed it to the bottom of the bowl.

"Why did you need the water _and_ the mirror?" Mabel asked as Dipper wiped his hands on his pants.

"Uh, well, a really good scrying spell can be done without the circle and on any reflective surface. As long as there's somewhere for the image to reflect, it'll work. But I'm…not that good at it so I use the circle to focus my magic," Dipper indicated the chalk drawing, "And the double reflective surfaces to enhance the spell. Er, in theory anyway. I actually haven't tried this before." Mabel took a few cautious steps back. Then she took a few more. Dipper huffed and turned his back on her,

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, sis."

"Hey, I want to keep my eyebrows, thanks!"

"Whatever, just don't interrupt me." Dipper got down on his knees in front of the circle and stretched his hands out over it. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and started the spell.

It took a lot of focus and more energy than he probably had but he'd told Mabel he'd try so try he did. He pushed with every ounce he had, forcing the magic out rather than let it flow like he usually did. But when his usual flow was a pathetic trickle, well, he couldn't really be blamed. He pushed and then pushed harder, feeling the resistance of his own body telling him to stop. His skin prickled where his rapid healing tattoos were but there was nothing to heal, they simply sensed his fatigue.

A bead of sweat trickled down Dipper's forehead and he opened his eyes a slit, squinting at the circle. The water in the bowl was smooth as glass and slightly fogged but no images were appearing. Dipper struggled, muttering the spell over and over and over, focusing on what he wanted, and pushing as hard as he could.

Something snapped.

He felt it a split second before it happened and tried to yank his magic back but it was too late. The connection between the spell building in the circle and his own magic splintered and ambient energies and magic rushed in to fill the void. The air crackled and there was a small plume of magic, an explosion of sparks that looked like a fireworks display.

Dipper fell back with a weak cry, kicking over the bowl of water as he smacked into the floor of the storage room. Mabel rushed to his side in an instant, crouching over him in worry,

"Dip! Dipper! Hey, are you okay!? Lemme see!" She gently took his hands and he hissed as her fingers brushed the blisters on his palms, "Oh, Dipper, I am really, reaaalllyyy sorry! Come on, let's get back to the Shack, I'll patch you up."

"My journal!" Dipper insisted, turning back to get it, "And this mess--!"

Mabel swept up his journal and then started shoving him out the door, "We'll clean it up later, it's not a big deal. Now gimme your keys, no way I'm letting you drive back with your hands like that."

"It's just a few blisters, Mabel, it's not a big deal!"

"Keys! Now!"

"You're so bossy…"

"You love me!"

"Yeah, sometimes I wonder why. Man, Stan's gonna be so mad at me for this, I'm basically proving his point that magic is dangerous. Geez."

Mabel cast her brother a glance as she pulled the door Dipper's grey and peeling Taurus, "You going to be okay? You guys aren't going to fight again are you?"

"Mm? Nah, no." Dipper waved a hand at her as he slid into the passenger seat, "Don't worry about it so much, Mabel. It's like you said, he just cares a lot. We'll go back to the Shack, take care of these stupid blisters, and then…"

"And then what?"

"And then…I have to make a call…"

 


	2. Part Two

_\-----_

_triangle of forces [noun]; a triangle whose sides represent in magnitude and direction three forces in equilibrium_

\-----

Grunkle Stan was clearly not pleased about Dipper's blistered hands but he simply grunted at the twins and told them to stop being stupid. Dipper opened his mouth to argue but Mabel kicked him in the shin and he shut it again, frowning. Their late night pizza was eaten in a rather tense silence until Mabel flicked a mushroom into Waddles' mouth and soon they were all laughing and trying to catch food in their mouths.

While Mabel cleaned up after dinner ("Waddles can help me with the dishes! He can lick things clean _really fast_!"), Dipper tried to change his sauce stained bandages on his own. They were just a handful of Mabel's brightly colored bandaids but they were now covered in grease and pizza sauce and Dipper was in no mood to get an infection from pizza sauce.

"Hey, kid," The young man looked up to see Stan hovering in the bathroom doorway, "Uh, your sister kind of threw me out of the kitchen. Said I wasn't 'cleaning the dishes right'?" He rolled his eyes, "How're your hands doing?"

Dipper snorted, "Okay. They'll probably be fine in a couple of days. I was just trying to change out the bandages. Put some antiseptic on the blisters, just in case."

"Pah, you always were paranoid."

"Hey!"

"Lemme see." Stan shoved Dipper's hand out of the way, took the tube of antiseptic and box of bandaids from him, and started working on the blisters himself.

Dipper stared at him, brow furrowed, "Grunkle Stan…?"

"This is exactly why I don't like you kids messing with this stuff." Dipper scowled at his great uncle's words, cheeks flushing red with temper, "But you're good at it, you know. Kind of. Stuff still blows up on your face a lot. Like, ha, it's kind of ridiculous how much stuff blows up in your face!" Dipper virtually swelled with embarrassed anger, screwing himself up to snap back at his great uncle. But Stan's next words cut him off,

"But the stuff that doesn't blow up in your face? You're actually pretty good at it."

Before Dipper could start wondering if that was praise or an insult, his great uncle slapped the young man's bandaged palms and got to his feet. Dipper doubled over, eyes watering with the sting in his hands, teeth gritted as he tried not to whimper,

"There ya go, Dips, you're all set! Don't say your great uncle never did anything for ya'!" And he strode out of the bathroom, chuckling to himself and waving a hand over his shoulder.

Dipper glared at his great uncle's retreating back and then frowned at the brightly colored bandages on his hands. Stan's attitude towards his and Mabel's use of magic was rarely a positive one. But sometimes he seemed to be almost proud. The man was difficult to read but he was their great uncle and, in his own way, he did care.

\---- -/o\\- -----

Mabel woke up in the middle of the night and didn't know why.

She sat up, rubbing gritty sleep from her eyes, and glanced around their attic room. It looked smaller than when they had been twelve but it was still home. Little had changed about it in six years, mostly their personal decor and the protection symbols Dipper had added to the walls. Waddles--twice as big as he used to be--was curled on the demon trap rug at the of her bed and was making little snuffly noises.

But the other noise in the room, the one that should have been there, was missing. The usual crinkle of paper being bent as a body rolled on top of it, the occasional clatter of a lost pen or pencil falling to the floor, the soft mutterings of her twin talking in his sleep. Dipper's side of the room was distinctly quiet.

"Dipper? Dips?" Mabel pushed her hair out of her face and sat up straighter, squinting through the darkness. Dipper's bed was still covered in his papers and journals but Dipper himself was missing.

"Dipper?" She swung herself out of bed and reached out to switch on the bedside lamp. The light was a bit too bright for a moment but when her eyes adjusted, Mabel saw that not only was her brother gone but so were his car keys. She shot up and hurried to the triangle window, standing on tiptoe to look down into the yard.

No car.

"Brother of mine, you are an _idiot_!" Mabel hissed. Something nudged at her legs and she looked down to see Waddles staring curiously up at her, "What do you think, should we go after him?" Waddles grunted and titled his head to the side. Mabel sighed, "Yeah, you're right. He probably just went to the shop. Probably to clean up his mess; he's such a weirdo. He'll be ffiiinnneee. Maybe. This is Dipper we're talking about."

Another grunt from Waddles.

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. I do have some spell weaving to do tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be all right. Come on, Waddles, back to Dreamland!"

Mabel switched the lamp off and crawled back under her blankets. She stared across the room at Dipper's empty bed, trying to reassure herself that her brother would be fine.

It didn't work.

"Aaahhggg, Dipper! I'm going to kick your butt!"

And she dragged herself out of bed again to get dressed. Since Dipper took the car, she'd have to walk into town. But for her idiot of a twin, well, she'd walk five hundred miles and then five hundred more if she had to.

\---- -/o\\- ----

Dipper had indeed gone back to the shop but not with the intention of cleaning up. Though he did pick up the bowl and set it back in the middle of the circle and dropped the mirror back into it.

No, the real reason he'd gone back to the shop in the middle of the night was to have the privacy and space to make his call.

He cast a wary glance at the storeroom door, knowing there was no Mabel to burst in on him this time, and then turned away again. He raised his hands, palms facing out, fingers spread wide, and pressed the tips of his pointer fingers and thumbs together, creating a triangle with his hands. He held his hands in front of his chest, over the pendant that dangled from a thin silver chain around his neck. The pendant was a thick, flat triangle of translucent amber wrapped in silver. Set in the middle of the amber was a small chunk of smoky quartz further set with a streak of obsidian to make it look like an eye.

Dipper sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to chant. It was a short incantation and an easy one, especially since he'd done it so many times. But he always liked to have his full concentration when invoking this particular ritual because he never knew what to expect.

Like the thick iron spikes that suddenly rammed through his throat and chest.

He choked, stumbling, as blood welled into his mouth. It dripped down his face, from the wounds in his neck and chest, the weight of the spikes--as big as his arm and just as wide--dragging him down. He gagged again, clutching at the one in his neck, fingers slipping in the thick blood. He grimaced, let out a wet, wheezing cough, and forced himself to straighten up.

"We talked about this…!" He spat through gritted teeth, blood still dripping from his mouth and splattering the gray-washed floor. He glared at the other figure that had suddenly appeared in the room, still tugging at the iron spikes in his body.

"Sorry, Pine Tree, I just can't help myself~" Bill Cipher cooed, raising and lowering his black, stick-thin arms in a shoulderless shrug.

"You can too help yourself, you just don't." Dipper scowled, "I told you before, enough with the nightmare fuel! We talked about this! A lot! Geez, you don't have to make a grand entrance every single time…" The young man raised a blood smeared hand and snapped his fingers. The spikes vanished, as did the blood, and he tugged his shirt and jacket straight with a frown.

"Aw, this use to be a lot more fun when you would scream like a little girl and get scared of your own shadow." Bill complained, leaning back in midair and tucking his hands behind him. Dipper's shadows peeled itself off the grey wall and began to stretch across the floor, clawed hands reaching for the young man.

"Bill, cut it out." Dipper said warningly. He kicked as his shadow and it dissolved into nothing, "I called you because I have a question I need answered."

"And I know aaallll your answers~" The demon chirped, somehow managing to look smug with his one eye, "What's on your mind, Pine Tree? Oh, wait, I already know. It's that scrying spell that backfired on you, isn't it? You wanna know what you did wwrrooonnnggg?" He drew the word out mockingly.

"Yeah, I do. I want to know what I _keep_ doing wrong." Dipper picked at one of the bandages on his hands absently, "The defensive spells, the protection runes, and the trapping and binding magic--that all comes easy. But the rest of it I have to _push_ for it. What didn't you tell me? What _aren't_ you telling me?"

"Hey, hey, calm down, kid, I've told you everything you asked about. Full disclosure." Bill raised his hands defensively but, as usual, there was something condescending about it, "I answered all your questions. If you don't know something it's because you didn't ask. And that's on _you_."

"You're such a weasel! Always looking for loopholes!"

"You knew that about me before you bound me, kiddo~"

"Stop sounding like it was your idea!"

"You gonna ask me something or are you just going to stand there being mad? Because let me tell you, Pine Tree, I've got better things to do than watch how red your face can get. And _boy_ can it get red, haha! 'Specially when you're thinkin' about giirrlllssss~"

Right on cue, Dipper flushed a brilliant shade of red.

"Cut it out! Quit poking around in my thoughts and answer the question!" Dipper's gaze hardened and he clenched his fists, "Or I'll bind you in one of Mabel's trap rugs again. And _leave you there for days_."

"You were ssooooo much more fun when you were a lot smaller." Bill grumbled, crossing his arms sullenly, "Fine, fine, buzz kill, ask away…"

Dipper sighed, letting out some of the tension from his body, and tried to regain a clear head. It was no good to deal with a dream demon with a temper, especially in the mindscape. Dipper had grown more accustomed to the place over the years, could even pull some stunts of his own. But Bill existed here, in the dreams and memories, and he knew it far better than Dipper ever would. To try and match wits with Bill Cipher was foolish.

"Okay, why do I have such a hard time with offensive class magic? Why is it so hard for me to use when I can get defensive class magic down in no time flat?" Dipper asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Oh, that's easy!" Bill responded, lounging in the air and spinning his cane idly, "It's because of your nature!"

Dipper waited for him to elaborate and when he didn't, the young man groaned and rolled his eyes, "You're going to make me work for this, aren't you? Uhg, okay, _fine_. What do you mean by it's because of my nature?"

"Simple, Pine Tree. It's like this," Bill flipped his cane and the entire room spun. When he caught it again, the spinning stopped, "You know all about the categories of magic and the sub-categories and the sub-sub-categories, and so on and so forth. The thing those books of yours _don't_ tell you is that everyone's got their own special set of skills. And it's all about what's in here," He jabbed Dipper in the chest with the end of his cane, causing a wide hole to appear through the the young man's torso, "And here." The demon pointed at Dipper's head but the young man ducked, scowling at him.

"I told you to cut that out." Dipper grunted, sweeping a hand over his front and making the hole disappear.

Bill ignored him and kept talking, "You humans are so emotional; you get hung up on all the little things like--what are those called-- _friends_. Gee, what a waste. You know I could take that part out of you and you'd be able to cast spells _much_ easier!" The demon thrust a hand out but Dipper's sour expression was the only answer he needed, "No deal? All right, your loss, kid! If you'd just let these silly connections go you could be a whhooollleee lot more powerful. Trust me, I can _see it_."

"What do you mean? What's wrong with having connections and caring about people?"

"Come ooonnn, kiddo, put it together!" Bill rolled his eyes, exasperated, having no pactience for teaching, "Your magic is directed at protecting _others_! You're more worried about _them_ than you are _yourself_! It's ridiculous! You could stand to be a little more selfish, Pine Tree. Do things for _you_ and not for _them_. GET MAD!" Bill's body flickered red and his voice boomed across the mindscape, "You don't fight back enough. You don't have the guts for it! You never instigate a fight, it's so _boring_ watching you play the martyr, the hero, the golden boy. Maybe if you threw the first punch once in a while you'd be able to get a handle on those fireballs you want to practice juggling to impress the ladies~"

Dipper ignored the jab, brow furrowed in thought, "So…because I focus more of myself on protecting others…I don't have the skill set to you more offensive magic. That does kind of make sense, even if it is kind of frustrating." He glanced up at Bill who was starting to look bored, "So it's aggression I need. That's what you're saying, right? That I'm not aggressive enough? But I can't just make myself angrier or something…"

"Oh, but can't you?" The demon trilled, his eye squinting into a smirk, "Didn't I just offer to remove a part of your personality? Pay attention, Pine Tree, you might learn something."

"Are you offering to make me angrier?"

"No, no, that's ridiculous. The angry ones are such a pain to deal with. So much _yelling_ , yeesh. No, I'm offering to make you more aggressive. Give you a boost for those offensive spells." Bill chuckled to himself, laughing at some unknown joke, and rocked back on his heels, "I could make you more powerful than anyone in the world, kid. All you gotta do is ask."

"And make a deal." Dipper spat, "I know how this works, Bill, I'm not stupid."

"Coulda fooled me!"

Dipper struggled not to start arguing with the demon, trying to keep a level head, trying to figure out how to go about this, "Okay. All right. 'Nother question: is there another way to get better at offensive spell casting besides being more aggressive or whatever?"

"Yeeeaaarrrsss of practice." Bill said, "Years I can promise you that you do not have. So what's it gonna be, Pine Tree? We got a deal or not?"

"No deals!" Dipper snapped, "I bound you, Bill Cipher, you can't make deals with me! You can't hurt me anymore! You can't do anything to me!"

Right as the words left his mouth, Dipper knew he shouldn't have said them. Bill's eye narrowed into a dangerous slit and his presence filled the room. Dipper swallowed hard and took a step back.

"Oh, can't I?" The demon hissed and Dipper wished he would yell because that was much easier to deal with, "I'm in your head all the time, Dipper Pines. I know what keeps you up at night, I know you're worst fears, I know everything about you. I could do a lot to you. Do you have any idea HOW POWERFUL I AM!?"

Aaanndd there was the yelling.

Bill swelled in his rage, yellow becoming red, his voice a deep boom that shook the mindscape, "I COULD DO THINGS TO YOU THAT ARE BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION! THAT ARE NOT COVERED BY YOUR BINDING SPELLS! I KNOW YOU, DIPPER PINES!" Abruptly he was back to his usual size, calming staring an eighteen year old Dipper down, little black hands resting casually on his cane,

"And I know you're still afraid of me."

Yes, Dipper was still definitely afraid of Bill. It was one of the reasons he'd bound him in the first place, so he could have some form of limited control over the demon. But Dipper was not stupid enough to think he was more powerful than Bill Cipher. The terms of the binding prevented Bill from doing him any direct harm but the demon was a sly one and Dipper had no doubts about what Bill could do to him indirectly.

"And this is exactly what I was talking about!" Bill suddenly gestured at Dipper who flinched automatically, "Look at you! You're as noodley as your arms used to be! Stand up to me, Pine Tree, it's more fun when you do that! Be aggressive! Get mad!"

"I…I'm not…"

"You want me to stir it up for you?" Bill had his hand out, blue flames flickering from his palm, "I could give you a little prod, kid. Just a poke. Give that animal part that's in all you humans a little nudge to wake it up. Nothing too nasty unfortunately, just a little poke. After all what fun is it to let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Better to prod 'em with a big stick and see how sharp their teeth are!"

Dipper grimaced at Bill's out stretched hand. Taking this offer could be all kinds of monumentally stupid but Dipper wanted answer and he knew from experience that finding them was often dangerous. If it came down to it, he'd rather be able to throw lightning than throw up a shield. He might even be able to finally test out those anti-theft spells he'd been theorizing over.

"All right, Bill, I'll take you up on that." Dipper said, reaching for the demon's hand, "But no funny business!"

"Funny business? Please, Pine Tree, gimme some credit! I deal only in the most serious of busines--WAIT! DON'T!"

The warning came too late. Dipper's fingers curled around Bill's icy hand. His eyes widened as he felt a spell crackle and swell between them. There was an almighty bang of magic and a blinding flare of blue light.

Before the searingly painful sensation of meathooks dragging through his soul made him pass out, Dipper's last thought was vaguely along the lines of,

_I should have known better._

And then he knew no more.

 


	3. Part Three

\-----

_faux pas [noun]; an embarrassing or tactless act or remark in a social situation_

\-----

Mabel saw the flare of blue light from the center of town and picked up the pace, running towards their little shop as fast as she could. All the while she muttered about her stupid brother and his stupid curiosity and his stupid habit of playing with magic. One would have thought that after six years and hundreds of late night mishaps _he would have learned_. But he never seemed to. And that was why Mabel was the Alpha Twin.

"Dipper!?" She jerked the key out of the lock and hurried through the shop towards the storage room, "Dipper, I know you're in here! I saw the light! What did you do!? Dipper!"

She threw the storage room door open and saw her brother lying on his back on the floor, unconscious. But he wasn't the only one. Bill Cipher was hanging in the air, eye closed, limbs listless, drooping forward like he was dozing off. Mabel clenched her fists. The only reason she could see Bill outside of the mindscape was because Dipper had summoned him and because of the daydream charm she wore on a bracelet around her wrist.

She vividly remembered when he'd been trying to make the charms. It was shortly after he'd bound Bill, he realized how inconvenient it was to have to fall asleep in order to speak with Bill in the mindscape. After some research he'd discovered some daydream charms and had started to try tailoring them, trying to make it so they could be used for seeing Bill while they were still wide awake.

And he was using himself as the test subject.

The first few charms simply seemed to put him into a trance-like state where he stared off into space until someone yanked the charm off him. The ones after were more harmful.

Dipper started hallucinating, seeing things from his own imagination and nightmares in the real world. His vision skewed sometimes, causing him to trip or stumble or run into walls. Mabel was furious that he was using himself for testing but he refused to use anyone else. She started cooking up sleeping potions and "good feeling" potions to help keep his progressively worse nightmares and hallucinations at bay. They helped at first, but as Dipper's charms grew stronger, her potions lost affect.

Bill thought the whole fiasco was kind of funny. Until Dipper began seeing his nightmares when he was awake. And at one point it got so bad that Dipper nearly killed himself trying to jump out their bedroom window.

After that, no one was laughing.

Bill got his act together and helped Dipper perfect the daydream charms. Dipper didn't speak to him for almost two weeks afterwards; Bill had known how to solve the problem and instead of helping he'd watched Dipper suffer through almost a month of hallucinations and nightmares. Dipper trapped him in one of Mabel's rugs and left him there.

And now here her brother was passed out on the floor with Bill Cipher hovering (unconscious?) over him. He should never have bound that demon, should never have gone to him for answers. It only led to trouble.

"Dipper! Dipper are you okay!? What happened!?" Mabel crouched down beside him, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead, "Dipper. Dipper Pines you wake up right now!"

Dipper's brow furrowed and his fingers twitched. His eyelids fluttered, he shifted, murmured something that was certainly not in english, and then squinted up at Mabel, his gaze hazy,

"Mm…Shooting Star?"

Mabel froze. That was Bill's nickname for her. Dipper never, ever, ever called her that. Mabel got to her feet and shifted back a step.

"Wha…?" Dipper--Bill?--shifted and sat up without using his arms, head lolling on his shoulders. He blinked one eye. And then the other. And then both at the same time. He raised his hands slowly, stared at them, flexed his fingers, and then, very slowly, turned his head to look at Mabel,

"Uh oh."

Above them, Bill--Dipper?--shivered, groaned, and opened his eye. He took in his vantage point and let out a squeak of fear, hands flying up to cover his eye. He froze when he saw his hands and then slowly looked down at the twins on the floor.

"Oh…oh no. No, no, no, no! No! Not this again! This can't be happening again! Bill, what did you _do_!?"

"Me!?" Bill shouted back, trying to get to his feet and stumbling backwards against a wall of boxes, "This isn't my fault! You're the one who left your spell work up!" He pointed to chalk circle and the bowl with the mirror still in it. The circle's edges were charred and the mirror was cracked.

"But…how?" Dipper asked feebly. He was drifting progressively closer to the ceiling, obviously shaken by the situation. It was odd to see Bill Cipher--or his body anyway--looking scared, curling in on himself and hunching up in the same way Dipper did when he was frightened and nervous,

"Theory!" Bill chirped, still leaning against the boxes, "The combination of your magic and my powers meeting over your failed scrying spell reflected in the mirror and bounced back. Literal reflection, Pine Tree!"

"What!? But--but I can't be a triangle!" Dipper shrieked.

"Hey! You gotta problem with triangles!?"

"WELL I DON'T WANNA BE ONE!"

"GIMME BACK MY BODY AND I'LL TURN YOU INTO YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!"

"ENOUGH!" Mabel shouted and both of them looked around at her in surprise, "Okay. Dipper's gotten himself into a mess again. No big deal. We can sort this out like we usually do. First things first, let's get back to the Shack, there's more resources there."

"Yeah, resources like your great uncle." Bill grunted, pushing himself off the boxes and taking a couple shaky steps, "Wow, Pine Tree, you're a lot farther from the ground than the last time I was in here, haha! Wonder what would happen if I fell down the stairs _now_ …?"

"Don't you dare!" Mabel snapped, glaring at the demon inhabiting her brother's body. She continued to glare at him until he backed off and raised his hands in defeat, despite still wearing his smug smile. Mabel huffed at him and looked up at Dipper who was now cramped against the ceiling, tiny little hands curled against his bowtie,

"Dipper, get down from there. Come on, let's go back to the Shack." Mabel held her arms up, open, "Come on, bro-bro. You know with your brains and my cuteness we can fix anything."

Dipper looked at her uncertainly and then slowly drifted down into his sister's embrace. She wrapped her arms around him and it was a bit like holding a tingling ice cube, something slightly insubstantial. Mabel wondered if this was what holding a cloud felt like. A cloud charged with static electricity maybe.

"Grunkle Stan is going to kill me." Dipper muttered, "He is going to ground me for the rest of my natural life. Or worse, he'll put me in the Shack in a display case that says _Idiot Great Nephew Who Wouldn't Stop Practicing Magic and Look What Happened to Him_." Dipper closed his eye and put his face(?) in his hands, "I am so dead."

"Maybe Standford has the right idea," Bill was fidgeting with Dipper's clothes, tugging on his jacket and hiking up his jeans, "Maybe you should quit with the parlor tricks, Pine Tree, you kinda suck at it. And quit cuddling my body. I am not for cuddling. So cut it out."

"Don't be silly," Mabel scoffed, beaming down at the triangle in her arms, "You have an adorable body! It's like hugging _sunlight_." And she squeezed Dipper, giggling as he he let out a squawk and tried to get away.

"Stop--hey, I said cut that out!" Bill snapped, "I do not cuddle! I am an all-seeing demon! I am a being of pure energy with no weaknesses and I DO NOT CUDDLE!" He tried to lunge for Mabel but tripped over his feet and went stumbling to the other side of the room, smacking his head on the wall.

"Careful with my body!" Dipper shouted, squirming in Mabel's grasp.

"Wow! Talk about durable!" The demon in Dipper's body shook his head, blinking one eye and then the other. There was an awfully familiar manic grin on his face and there was a red spot growing on his temple, "A blow like that woulda knocked you out before! Haha, wow, kid, you've been working out!"

"Erhg, Mabel, can we _please_ get back to the Mystery Shack!" Dipper tugged on his sister's sweater sleeve, trying to get her attention. "I'd like to get us back to normal before Bill does something monumentally stupid like cutting off my arm!"

"Okay, but I need your car keys. There is no way I am walking all the way back there with you two nutjobs snipping at each other." Mabel said.

"I got 'em they're…in my…pocket…" Dipper's eye swiveled around to stare at Bill who gave them a blank look for a moment. Then a slow grin spread across his features and he stuck his hand in the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a set of keys that jangled with protection charms.

"We're all gonna die." Dipper groaned and hid himself in his twin's sweater, again asking the universe why it had to be him that always got the short end of the stick.

\---- -/o\\- ----

Mabel had managed to wrestle the keys away from Bill (who was still not coordinated enough in Dipper's body to fight her off) and drove them all back to the Shack. Dipper had been hunkering in the back seat but he didn't trust Bill (who kept poking his still bandaged fingers in the air vent slots) up in the passenger seat and eventually floated up front. He perched himself on the dashboard in front of Bill and glared out the windshield, pointedly ignoring every jab the demon sent at him.

When they reached the Shack, Dipper darted ahead, floating right through the front door. Bill made to follow but Mabel grabbed his arm, pulling him to a halt. He turned his head in that leisurely, slightly creepy manner of his, and stared at her.

"No funny business, Bipper." Mabel ordered firmly, "We're switching you two back, no questions asked!"

"Like I wanted to be stuck in your brother's noodle body," The demon replied, peeling her fingers off his arm and stepping out of her reach, "If I wanted his body again, I would have taken it. And I certainly don't want it now that he's covered himself in all these runes. They itch like crazy!"

Mabel was about to ask what he meant when a hair-raising screech came from the Shack,

"KIDS! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SUMMONING THIS THING IN THE HOUSE!? KIIIDDDSSS!!"

"Oh no, Grunkle Stan! He must have seen Dipper! He doesn't know it's not you! Come on, we gotta save him!" Without thinking, Mabel grabbed Bill's wrist and ran into the Shack. They found Stan in the living room, chasing Dipper around with a broom and smacking him with it, shouting curses and half-remembered exorcisms. Dipper was ducking, dodging, and weaving, trying to get away but always getting cornered, his shouts lost under Stan's shouting.

"Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Stan, stop!" Mabel dove between Stan and Dipper, holding her arms out to try and stop him.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SUMMONING BILL CIPHER IN THE HOUSE!?" Stan bellowed, still waving the broom over his head.

"I didn't summon him in the house!" Dipper shouted back, cowering behind his sister with his arms raised over his head. There were ripples of energy rolling off his triangle body, sending shivers of cold through the air.

"Truth!" Came the sound of Dipper's far too cheerful sounding voice. Everyone looked around to see Bill lounging against the threshold, legs crossed at his ankles, fiddling with the pendant in the likeness of his body. There was a smug smile on his face, a most un-Dipper-like expression.

"Eh?" Stan glanced at Bill, frowning.

"Put the broom down, Stan Pines. The one you really want to be smacking with it is right here." Bill jerked his thumb at his chest, oh so proud of himself.

"What the hell…?" Stan lowered the broom, confusion etched clearing on his features. He looked to Mabel for answers. Normally he would have asked Dipper but as Dipper was the one acting weird, he had to ask the sister instead.

"Dipper went back to the shop and summoned Bill," Mabel explained hurriedly, "I don't know all the details but something backfired on them and now they've switched bodies!"

"…You're kidding me."

"She's not." Dipper hovered over Mabel's head, still looking wary of Stan and the broom, "Hey…Grunkle Stan…" He waved a hand meekly, "So, uh. I'm stuck as a triangle demon. How're you doing?"

Stan stared at Dipper, then at Bill, then back at Dipper. Then he scowled,

"I'm gonna kill you, kid, I _told you_ not to mess with--"

"Can we drop the lecturing for once!?" Dipper snapped and there was a crackling snap of energy. The fabric of the universe itself seemed to shiver and the edges of the world faded into grey.

"Eaasssyyy, Pine Tree." Bill was suddenly there, cupping his hands around his former body and pulling him away from Mabel, "You're in my body, you got my energy and my powers. Energy's a little more volatile than your fleshy human prisons."

"Get yer hands off my nephew, demon spawn." Stan growled, putting himself between Mabel and Bill, "And give him back his body."

Bill's lip curled in a sneer and he released Dipper who trailed dazedly into Mabel's arms again, "It's not that simple, Stanford. This wasn't a deal, I didn't swap us. Pine Tree did it with his mediocre magic." Bill gestured at Dipper who glared at him and flipped the demon off with both hands.

"Wait, wait, back up! Are you saying you can't switch back!?" Mabel cried, "Are you saying you're _stuck like this_!?"

"What, you mean you don't want me for a brother?" Bill teased, leaning around Stan.

But Stan was having none of the demon's antics. He grabbed a fistful of Bill's shirt and dragged his attention back, giving him a hard shake,

"Listen here, Ciper, you're going to fix this! And you fix it now or I'll--"

"You'll _what_ , Stanford?" Bill sneered, leaning forward in Stan's grip, noses nearly touching, "You wouldn't hurt your only nephew, woulda'? Pllleeeaaassseee, what a joke. You've got no leverage in this situation."

"Neither do you!" Dipper shouted, "You're stuck! I'm stuck! We're both stuck! So fix this you dumb triangle!"

"I know my body doesn't have your fleshy human ears, Pine Tree, but weren't you listening?" Bill pulled away from Stan, pushing the man's hands away so he could glare at Dipper, "I. Can't. The magic that did this is _yours_ and I can't use it. You h-h-hu--" A yawn cut Bill off and he blinked in surprise, rubbing at his eyes, "What was that?"

"It's called a yawn, dumby." Mabel said, "Dipper's body is exhausted, he was casting spells all day and he probably didn't sleep at all before he headed to the shop."

"He didn't!" Bill said cheerfully, rocking back and forth on his heels.

"We're not solving anything by arguing and picking at each other!" Dipper interrupted, wriggling out of Mabel's arms to hover in the air and glare at the lot of them, "We're all tired. _I'm_ tired and I'm in a body made out of pure energy! I hate to say this but…maybe we should rest up tonight. Deal with this tomorrow."

"Dipper…" Mabel murmured uncertainly.

"I don't like it." Stan grumbled, crossing his arms, "It makes sense but that doesn't mean I like it. You." He jabbed a finger at Bill who smiled smugly at him, "Get upstairs with Mabel and stay there. We'll sort this out in the morning. And don't you dare try anything."

Bill raised his hands, trying to look defenseless. But he was still wearing that grin and no one was fooled for a second. Mabel frowned at him and grabbed Dipper's hand. He swiveled his eye around to look at her but she kept glaring Bill,

"Come on. We're going upstairs." And without waiting to see if he was following, Mabel started for the attic room.

Bill trailed after her, ignoring Stan's furious glare. He had a little trouble coordinating the stairs and he giggled when he slipped and slammed his knees into the wooden step. But Mabel dragged him up with a scolding glare and hauled him the rest of the way up the stairs. She let him go when they got to the room, still holding Dipper's hand and leading him across the room to her bed. Bill cast a glance around and stepped forward only to freeze.

"Hey, Shooting Star. A little help?"

Dipper's eye swiveled around, took one look at Bill, and giggled, trying to hold back his laughter. Mabel followed his gaze and snorted, unable to hide her own smile. Bill glared at the pair of them, stuck in the demon trap rug that Mabel had made and placed in front of the door.

"How come he got stuck and I didn't?" Dipper asked, drifting down to settle on the nightstand beside Mabel's bed.

"Because your essence is still human, mine's demon." Bill answered, pushing at the edges of the circle, "It's not the body, Pine Tree, it's what's inside."

"Aw, Billy, that was almost deep." Mabel said as she approached and crouched down to release the trap. Bill stumbled out of the circle, straightening his jacket with a disgruntled huff. 

"Don't call me Billy." The demon grumbled, "How do you do this…sleeping thing?"

"Lay down, close your eyes, and relax." Mabel replied, climbing to her feet, "I'm going to change. You two try not to kill each other." And she left the room, heading for the bathroom.

Dipper and Bill watched her go and then looked at each other. There was a tense silence between the two before Dipper spoke,

"You're not going to throw my body down the stairs this time, are you…?"

Bill let out a dark chuckle, shuffling across the room to ease onto Dipper's bed, "When I got your body that first time, I was trying to stop you from finding things out, Pine Tree. I knew you'd get your body back eventually, you're resourceful like that. So if I could beat you up and slow you down, then I had no qualms about throwing your little twelve year old body down the stairs." He grinned at the visible shiver that rippled off the triangle body Dipper was trapped in, "But don't worry yourself so much, kid. This time it was an accident. You bound me and I need you to release me again. Eventually. Beating you up now would be counter-productive, I gotta stay on your good side." Bill looked away from Dipper and began picking at the bandages on his fingers, peeling them away slowly and grinning sickly at the sensation tugging at his skin, "For the most part."

He flicked a bandaid onto the floor and looked up at Dipper with a smile that wasn't quite as easy to read as usual, "Being corporeal's a real treat for me, Pine Tree. You probably figured out by now, being in my body 'n all, mindscape entities don't feel things the same way you humans do. Being made out of energy, pain and certain other sensations don't exactly register to us. So being able to experience those things so intensely in body of flesh and bone, haha, this is gold!"

Dipper looked almost speechless. He stared at Bill for a long moment, taking in what he'd said, and then shook himself, sending out another ripple of energy, "I don't--that doesn't matter! I don't care if this is a joy ride for you! That's _my body_ , Bill! And if you do anything to harm it--!"

"Reellaaaxxx, kiddo, didn't I just say I wasn't going to do anything to it?" The demon picked off the last of the bandaids of inspected his hands, flexing his fingers and rubbing at the still slightly tender areas where the blisters from earlier had been. The rapid healing spells on Dipper's body had acted fast, "I was just sayin'. Boy, you sure did get long, haha! You're taller 'in Shooting Star now, aren't you? You have legs for ddaaayysss!" Bill stuck his legs out in front of him, giggling, and Dipper made a noise halfway between embarrassment and disgust, "Too bad you're covered in these dumb runes or I'd be having a lot more fun!"

"Runes?" Dipper frowned (or the best imitation of a frown he could do without a mouth), "What's wrong with my runes?"

"They _itch_ , Pine Tree!" Bill flopped back onto the bed, wriggling around to scratch his entire back, "You've got binding symbols and protection symbols embedded on your fleshy bits and they don't like me much. It's uncomfortable!"

"I thought pain was hilarious." Dipper teased, looking smug for once.

Bill scowled at him and rolled onto his side, kicking a bunch of papers and notebooks off the bed in the process, "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Pine Tree. You just hope we can get this figured out before what you see in the mindscape drives you insane…"

Silence fell rather thickly after that. When Mabel returned to the room, she found Bill sound asleep on the bed and Dipper resting quietly on the nightstand, his eye closed and his glow diminished. She wrapped a half-finished scarf around him, flicked off the light, and settled into her own bed. She'd left Waddles downstairs and had set up extra precautions against Bill while she'd been changing into her pajamas, not wanting the demon to pull some stupid stunts.

But her real concern was for her brother.

She'd felt his hand in her's when they'd been coming up the stairs. Insubstantial, cold. He looked like he hadn't even noticed her holding it.

She worried what that sort of existence could do to Dipper. She worried a lot.


	4. Part Four

\-----

_mayhem [noun]; violent or damaging disorder; chaos_

\-----

Waking up, Bill decided, was not a fun thing to do. He wasn't even sure how humans tolerated it. It was slow, it was difficult, it was aggravating. He liked even less how refreshed he felt. How did lying down with your eyes closed make you feel refreshed, it just didn't compute to the demon.

He sat up groggily, marveling and hating the sluggishness with which he was reacting, and noticed the room was empty. Shooting Star was no where to be found and Pine Tree was missing from the bedside stand. Bill sniffed and he could smell what Dipper's body told him was food. He jumped when his stomach gurgled at him and he grimaced at the situation.

Gross.

Humans were gross.

Sure, they could feel more than he and other mindscape beings did but the price to pay for it was just too much. Gross, hairy, sweaty, fleshy human bodies. He had no idea how humans functioned--let alone survived--with so many soft bits and squishy parts. Not to mention all the bodily fluids that they created. Ew.

Then again, he did admire their tenacity. He had to hand it to them, humans never backed down without kicking and screaming and pitching a fit. They fought the inevitable with a ferocity that would put a trapped werewolf to shame.

Sad that they broke so easily.

Bill swung his legs out of bed, played footsie with the floor when he discovered how cold it was against his bare feet, and finally stood up. It was strange to be this high up and still connected to the ground, disorienting. He took a couple seconds to get his bearings and then headed for the bedroom door. Only to find a demon trap rug blocking his path. There was one at the foot of the beds, right between the two, and one in front of the door. There was no way he was getting out of here.

The demon growled, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists. Then he took a moment to relish the sensation of his nails biting into the skin of his palms. But only a brief moment. He had to get out of this room. He was Bill Cipher! He would not be contained in a child's room!

He let his gaze travel over the room, searching for a tool or exit he could use to escape. He'd told Dipper he didn't want to hurt this body and that hadn't been a lie. But that didn't mean he was going to give up so quickly. He wanted to have a little fun first before he told them how to switch them back to normal.

A beam of sunlight caught his eye and he winced, turning around to see--

Ah, yes. The window. In a fitting triangular shape. Perfect.

Bill climbed onto the wobbly nightstand, bracing his hands against the wall. Still on his knees, he reached up and flicked the latch on the window, pushing it open to let in a cool morning breeze. A grin stretched across his face as he began to slowly lever himself up, grabbing the edge of the window sill and standing up, the night stand shaking underneath him. He stuck his head out the window, took a deep breath, and began to pull himself out.

"WHAT'RE YOU DOING!?"

Before he could look around, a pair of arms wrapped around his waist and dragged him backwards. He kicked out, swinging his arms, and knocked the lamp off the stand. It shattered to the floor and the person who'd grabbed him let out a yelp and stumbled back, still carrying Bill. They both fell to the floor and Bill rolled away, right into the demon trap rug between the beds. He let out frustrated snarl and kicked at the edges of the circle, whipping his head around to see who had interrupted his escape attempt.

Mabel was pulling herself to her feet, dusting off her skirt. She looked around at Bill, her expression part fury and part fear, "What were you doing climbing out the window!? You could have seriously hurt Dipper's body! What were you thinking!?"

"Just wanted to take it for a joy ride, Shooting Star." Bill sneered,struggling to his feet within the confines of the trap, "Havin' a body is like winning the lottery! I just wanted to play around for a little bit."

"I have no idea how Dipper puts up with you." Mabel sighed, releasing the demon from the trap.

Bill stepped backwards, towards the door, and grinned, "With a lot of headaches, I can promise you that, kid." He stopped suddenly, tugging at the jacket he'd slept in. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose, "Having a nose is not an improvement. You know you humans stink."

"Nah, that's just Dipper." Mabel said nonchalantly, nudging him towards the door, "You'd think being eighteen he'd have better hygiene but he forgets sometimes."

"Mabel!" Dipper had just floated into the room, no doubt to see what was keeping his sister from retrieving his demon possessed body.

"What? It's true!" Mabel put her hands on her hips, giving him a teasing scowl, "I mean at least you wash your dirty laundry now but you could stand to shower a little more, brother."

"I'll have you know I shower a perfectly decent amount for my age!"

"Is that why you're so pimply, Pine Tree?" The twins looked around to see Bill dragging his fingers over his face, picking at the various zits on Dipper's teenage skin.

"It's _hormones_!" Dipper shrieked, his voice cracking and bolts of energy snapping off his body.

"You keep saying that but you're really gross, Dipper."

"I am not! You sleep with a pig! That's gross!"

"Waddles is not gross! You take that back!"

"Then take back calling me gross!"

"Never!"

"I'm taking a shower!" Bill shouted over the top of the siblings fighting and they both gaped at him.

"Y-you're…you're what…?" Dipper murmured, looking more like he was dangling in the air than hovering.

"I said I am going to shower." Bill huffed, scratching at his shoulder, "You cast so many ridiculous protective spells yesterday and you didn't even wash your face. I am not using a filthy body, I've got a reputation to keep."

Mabel stared wide-eyed at Bill and then began to back out of the room, kicking the demon trap rug in front of the door aside as she went, "I am ssooo not having any part of this! It's all on you, brother! Mabel out!" And she bolted down the stairs.

Dipper looked after her desperately and then yelped when Bill brushed past him and headed for the bathroom, "H-hey, where are you going!?"

"Your listening skills are absolutely terrible, no wonder you get into so much trouble." Bill rolled his eyes and then, because he liked the feeling, did it again with a manic grin, "I said I'm going to wash your gross human body."

Dipper lit up like a firecracker. Sparks of energy rippled and bounced off the triangle shape he was trapped in, bubbles of light fracturing against the walls and making the room shiver. The temperature rose several degrees and the light from the window turned muddy and faded.

"B-but you don't even know how to use the shower!" He cried helplessly, "You're going to drown me!"

"Don't be dumb, I know how to use the shower," Bill grinned as he kicked the bathroom door open, leering at himself in the mirror, "How do you think I know all the words to that theme song you wrote for yourself when you were twelve?"

When Mabel ventured upstairs she found the triangle her brother was trapped in face down on the floor, his glow almost gone and scorch marks up the walls. When she picked him up and asked what was wrong, he simply groaned and let out the anguished words,

"Leave me to die."

No one prompted him further.

\---- -/o\\- ----

It took some work (ie; bodily pushing him into a chair and nearly shoving the food down his throat) to get Bill to eat breakfast. He seemed to forget that humans didn't run on the boundless energies of the universe and actually needed sustenance outside the tears of small children. He insisted that he did not use the tears of small children as nourishment between bites of toast. No one believed him.

Dipper, meanwhile, hovered moodily in a corner of the kitchen, glaring at Bill and occasionally shooting off sparks. Both Stan and Mabel kept sending him sideways glances, asking without words if he was okay. He never acknowledged these looks, apparently determined to keep his eye on Bill. Or he was just too embarrassed to speak.

When breakfast was finished and the table was cleared, Stan grabbed Bill's arm and dragged him to the side. Dipper was distracted with Mabel trying to poke things through his body and Soos was already in the shop, preparing to open it for the day. Stan pushed Bill against the wall, jabbing the end of his 8-ball cane into his chest,

"Listen here, Cipher. You have today to think about whether you're going to cooperate or not. As soon as the Shack closes today, you're switching back to normal. Is that clear?"

"Crystal clear, Stanford." Bill purred, pushing the cane away with all the urgency of a napping cat, "Or maybe you'd rather it be as clear as air? Crystals do tend to be translucent and/or opaque and I wouldn't want to get on your bad side, after all."

"You're already on my bad side, demon," Stan growled, stomping back towards the shop proper "You stay upstairs and you stay quiet until the work day's done."

"Aw, am I _grounded_?" Bill mock whined, putting on his best pout face.

Stan snapped. He whirled around and grabbed Bill's arm, marching him up the stairs. Bill protested, trying to dig his feet in and resist, but Stan shoved him through the door to the twins' bedroom, dragged the demon trap rug to the door, and then slammed it shut.

"Yeah, yer grounded!" He shouted through the door, "I'll get Mabel to bring you some lunch but you're staying in there until we can sort this out. And if I find one _hair_ outta place on my nephew, you're _dead_ Cipher!" And he stomped back down the stairs.

Bill fumed. His nails dug into his palms, his jaw was clenched so tightly his teeth hurt, and normally he would have enjoyed all these sensations. But right now he was just mad. If he was going to be stuck in Pine Tree's body, then he wanted to have some fun, do some damage, enjoy the feelings that real flesh, blood, and bone could grant him. Instead he was trapped in this stupid room all day until the Mystery Shack closed and by then it would be too late and he'd be back in his old body.

Not that he had any problems with his old body but…pros and cons.

The demon flopped onto Dipper's bed, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the opposite wall, and kicking his bare heels into the floorboards hoping to annoy _somebody_. He was, for all intents and purposes, sulking. And that only made him angrier. Bill Cipher did not sulk. Bill Cipher did not cuddle. Bill Cipher did not allow a grungy old man to boss him around!

But with that trap rug in front of the door, he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Unless…

Bill leapt to his feet and scrambled onto the nightstand, knocking over another pile of Dipper's ridiculous journals. The kid had started his own collection of writings, documenting everything he could about Gravity Falls, magic, and his own theories. Bill was waiting for it all to drive the kid insane. So far no such luck, but that didn't stop the demon from kicking the things off the nightstand out of spite and pressing his face against the triangular window. He peered down through it, saw the lot of the Mystery Shack starting to fill with the morning's round of tourists, and grinned. What better way to start the day then with an eighteen year old, tattooed boy dangling out of a second story window?

He unhooked the latch and pushed the window open, licking his lips eagerly.

This was going to be a riot.

\---- -/o\\- ----

Dipper was beginning to find that life as a being of pure energy with no weaknesses and the vast knowledge of the universe at the fringes of his senses was not a fun thing.

In fact, he found his mind(?) wandering a lot and had to jerk himself back to the present to keep himself from losing it. When he wasn't focused on where he was and what he was doing in the moment, he started seeing things.

At first it had been mere flickers at the edges of his vision. But now he'd begun to see shadowy shapes moving across the walls and vanishing into cracks. And when he spaced out too much, he saw fragments of the rest of the world. It was fascinating and terrifying to at one instant be watching Mabel rub Waddles' belly and the next instant he was watching some mountain goats on the other side of the world. Sometimes the images would overlap, smearing together at the edges, and Dipper had to force himself to focus and reorient himself in what was real.

The problem was that it was all real. And he knew it.

He knew that the visions of other places in the world were from Bill's "all seeing" power. He knew the shadowy things moving through the house were other monsters from the mindscape, drawn to the magics of the Mystery Shack but warded off by Dipper's own spellwork (or by Bill's presence). He knew that those thoughts and emotions and fragments of dreams or nightmares were from his friends, his family, the tourists and he knew why he could sense them. And it was beginning to frighten him.

Dipper had always thought himself good at magic. Maybe not the greatest but he certainly had skill. But this power, Bill's power, was far beyond his range of understanding. And worse still it was way beyond his ability to control it. He wondered, briefly, if becoming a demon like Bill would grant him powers like this. He instantly shook the thought away, shivering at the chill it left him with.

He would not be like Bill Cipher. Not ever.

"Dipper?"

The young man snapped his gaze to look at his sister. Mabel was standing just inside the door to the sitting room, heading for the Mystery Shack gift shop. There was a worried look on her face and Dipper wondered what he'd looked like to her just now, floating listlessly near the ceiling. Unbidden an image shivered into focus over top of the real world; an image of the triangle body he was trapped in, eye wide and staring into nothing, glow pulsing like a heartbeat, limbs limp. He squeezed his eye shut and mentally pictured walls going up around his mind, blocking out everyone else's thoughts and feelings.

"Dipper, are you okay? You've been kind of quiet since this morning. Did what happen with Bill bother you that much?"

"No. Yeah, I mean, kind of. But that's not what this is about." Dipper answered honestly, opening his eye and looking at his little black hands, "Mabel, this body…Bill's powers are still here, inside it. And I can't control them! I keep seeing things. Vague things. And it's getting harder and harder to shake them off. I'm worried about what will happen when I can't." He dropped his hands and looked down helplessly at his twin, "I don't know anything about clairvoyance or--or visions or anything like that. And I know that's not quite what Bill's powers are but that's the closest thing I can relate them to. And I don't understand them. This is…scary."

"Aw, bro, why didn't you say something sooner?" Mabel chided lightly, reaching up to tug on his foot and nearly toppling him out of the air, "If it's Bill's powers you're worried about, then it's Bill you should talk to, silly."

Dipper huffed, swelling with dislike even as he settled on Mabel's shoulder, "I don't want to talk to him. I hate him."

"You're the one that bound him. Go talk to him. Ask him how to control the power. Not use it, just control it." Mabel stroked her fingers over the edge of Dipper's triangle body and giggled at the electric sensation, "He probably doesn't want you to go all 'WHAM! KABLOOIE! EXPLODIFY!' all over everything so he'll probably answer."

"Yeah…I guess you've got a point…" Dipper still sounded doubtful but he drifted into the air again, "Thanks Mabel. I'll go talk to him. Where's he at anyway? I haven't seen him since breakfast, I'm kinda worried."

"Oh, Grunkle Stan locked him in our room. I think he's grounded." Mabel replied cheerfully, "I gotta help Grunkle Stan in the shop, okay. Make up for you not being there! I'll check on you later, bro-bro, I promise." She winked, blew him a kiss, and darted into the gift shop.

Dipper frowned after her and then drifted up the stairs, trailing sparkles of stars behind him. He appreciated her enthusiasm and optimism but there was only so much of it he could take. Especially right now.

With a tired sigh, he floated through the closed door (floating through things was _still_ weird) and then had to freeze as another double-sighted vision began to filter over the real world. He saw the room he shared with Mabel but overlaying it was a another room, ill lit and tiny with peeling walls and dangerous looking floorboards. There was a mattress piled with blankets on the floor, the walls were peppered with posters and pages of runes, some of which Dipper recognized and others he did not. And he was looking at the room from a different angle, almost from above. It made him dizzy and sick and he closed his eye again, forcing the image away, forcing the walls to go up.

He would not succumb to this.

A clatter in the real world drew his attention and he looked around, eye snapping open. Bill was nowhere in sight. But that couldn't be right, he had to be here, there was nowhere for him to go. The demon trap rug was still in front of the door and there were no other exits.

Something scraped along the wall outside and Dipper looked towards the window. It was wide open.

No.

On no.

"BILL!" Dipper shrieked, zipping across the room so fast it was like he teleported. Sure enough, Bill Cipher was dangling out the window, hands curled around the sill, bare feet scraping the splintering wooden side of the building.

He looked up with a manic grin when he heard Dipper, "Heya, Pine Tree! How's it going?"

"GET BACK INSIDE WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING YOU'RE GOING TO GET ME KILLED!!"

"Nah, don't worry so much!" Bill chirped, slowly peeling one hand away from the window sill to reach for a roof beam that was jutting out nearby. He couldn't quite reach and he shifted, leaning to the side and bracing himself with his feet to try and grab it, "I know what I'm doing."

"YOU COULD BARELY MAKE IT UP THE STAIRS THE OTHER NIGHT! YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO SCALE THE BUILDING! CUT IT OUT!" Dipper was nearly in hysterics. Energy was sparking and shooting off his body in waves, his bright yellow form had shifted to a dangerous red, his voice cracking and splintering with his terror and anger.

Bill glanced at him, grin slipping, "Eeeaassssyyy, Pine Tree. You can fry people's brains with that power. I'd watch yourself if I were you. Which, haha, I am, technically speaking."

Dipper let out a howl of rage and bolts of rad lightning splintered off his body, slamming into the wall and, unfortunately, Bill.

The demon let out a choked cry as the energy coursed through him, one hand clenching at the window sill, the other batting helplessly at the air as he tried to reestablish his grip. His feet scraped the wooden wall, tearing skin and leaving bloody streaks. The wood creaked. Splinters dug into his palm. He had never felt so many sensations of pain all at once and, for the first time, it was almost too much. 

Bill's eyes rolled back as he momentarily lost consciousness, overwhelmed by his frying nerves and torn flesh. 

His fingers slipped from the window sill.

And he fell.

 


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO HEY GUYS! My friend MaySparrow and I co-run a Depravity Falls blog called Vani ad Portam (http://veniadportam.tumblr.com/) and you should totally check it out and bother the two idiots who are on it! We also have a Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/veniadportam) if you'd like to support us! Supporters may or may not get sneak previews of upcoming chapters and one shots~

\-----

_broken [adjective]; (1)having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order; (2)rejected, defeated, or despairing_

\-----

Bill thought for a second that they had switched back and he was flying again. The weightlessness felt almost the same and he almost smiled.

Then he smacked into the edge of the Mystery Shack sign above the door, bounced off, tumbled through the air, and slammed into the ground. He gasped, the wind knocked out of him, and choked. 

Something was wrong, something wasn't right.

There was a ringing in his ears, his chest felt constricted, he couldn't breathe and he needed to, he needed to because that kept Pine Tree's body alive and he needed Pine Tree alive. Needed him alive to break the binding. Needed him alive for so many reasons.

He shifted and white-hot nails slammed into his senses.

His breath came back with a jolt and he sucked in a breath and _screamed_.

His vision blurred, hot water ran down his face. He couldn't barely think straight for the agony the was burning him up, chewing it's way up his insides and out his brain. He writhed on the ground, making the pain worse, screaming loudly, breath catching as he choked.

Other voices were yelling, calling for help, calling for numbers, calling things Bill didn't understand. It made him angry, this lack of understanding, and he tried to get up but that was by far the worst mistake. He shrieked and fell back with a thud against the ground, the pain momentarily stunning him. His head spun, the sky swimming in and out of focus as he shuddered on the ground, trying to suck in a stable breath, tears streaming down his face.

"DIPPER!" Mabel's voice pierced through him and she was suddenly leaning over him, pulling his head into her lap, "OH MY GOD, DIPPER, ARE YOU OKAY!? SAY SOMETHING!"

He shifted and the pain lanced from his leg to his skull, rattling him. He screamed and writhed, tears blurring his vision, "IT HURTS! WHY DOES IT HURT SO BAD!? WHY CAN'T I MOVE!? WHAT IS THISE SALTY WATER COMING OUT OF MY EYES!? IT HURTS MAKE IT STOP!"

"Bill!"

"Mabel, move! Go find your brother!"

"But--"

"NOW!"

Mabel pulled away and Stan took her place, looking down at Bill, "Stop screaming and moving around you idiot! Your leg's broken and you're just making it worse!" He leaned in close, pinning Bill to the ground, hissing between clenched teeth so the customers still lingering in the lot couldn't hear him, "You're _dead_ , Cipher. I don't know what the hell you were thinking climbing out that window but you're _dead_ when this is over!" He raised his head and shouted at someone Bill couldn't see,

"Get the truck! We gotta get this moron to the hospital!"

Soos' voice answered from the end of a long tunnel and Bill wondered why the edges of the world were fading to black. A numbness was battling with the pain and it was making his head spin. His eyelids grew heavy and his breath caught in his throat.

Then the world turned black, sounded faded away, and, for what was probably the first time in his existence, Bill Cipher fell into unconsciousness.

\---- -/o\\- -----

The second people had started screaming in the parking lot of the Mystery Shack, Mabel had bolted out the door to see what was going on.

When she saw he brother's body sprawled on the hard-packed earth, she thought her heart had stopped. He'd fallen out the window, that much was clear, and by the way he was screaming, he'd been badly hurt. Mabel had never been more terrified of anything in entire life; the thought of losing her brother was scarier than facing down a psychotic child psychic or fleeing from an island that was actually a man-eating monster head thing. The sight of Dipper laying on the ground, screaming and crying, broke her heart and made her blood run cold.

But leaving him there had been harder.

She knew it wasn't Dipper in there but it _looked_ like him. It looked like her brother lying there and leaving him there was crushing. But she obeyed Grunkle Stan and ran back into the Shack, dodging customers only to be stopped by Wendy who was leaning halfway over the counter to grab her arm,

"What's going on!? I heard screaming!? What happened!?"

"It's B--Dipper! It's Dipper! He fell! He's hurt! I--I have to--" Mabel shook her head, unable to find the words, and jerked away, heading for the stairs. She saw Wendy vault over the counter and run out the door. But her only concern was for her brother.

"DIPPER!" She burst into their room, sending the trap rug flying, and ground to a halt, trying to catch her breath and failing. The room felt…toxic. She couldn't think of another word to describe it. It felt dangerous, like simply breathing in the air would destroy her.

And the cause of it was hovering in front of the window.

He did not look normal. Instead of yellow brick he was pitch black, sucking in the light, his edges a white hot that hurt to look at. There was a slight vibration in the air around him, a trembling of the fabric of the universe. The sickly sensation radiated from his form like a heatwave.

"Dipper…?" Mabel crept closer, afraid to startle him, afraid to touch him, "Dipper? Bro? Hey, are you all right?"

The chaos from below was echoing up through the open window. Mostly yelling. Bill was still letting out those strangled, gasping, sobbing screams and asking why, why, why did it hurt so much!?

"Dipper?"

"He fell." There was something wrong with his voice, something dark, something awful, something like from the fringes of a nightmare.

"Yeah. Y-yeah, he did, but it's okay. It was just--he just broke his leg. Stan's taking him to the hospital, it'll be okay."

"I…made him fall."

"What?" Mabel felt a cold pit in her stomach and she struggled against the panic that wanted to rise. Did that mean Dipper had attacked Bill? Had he been trying to kill him? Was this all because her brother was trapped in an all-knowing demon's body?

"I didn't attack him! I didn't want to kill him!" Dipper shouted, whirling around to face her. She took an involuntary step back, startled by the stark black and white of his appearance and not a little shaken that he'd read her mind, "He was climbing out the window and I told him to stop! I told him to come back inside and he didn't! He didn't LISTEN TO ME!" He clenched his fists and white lightning splintered through the air, making Mabel duck, "HE DIDN'T LISTEN AND I…I…I got mad." The lightning fizzled away and Dipper sank slowly towards the floor, black fading into yellow,

"I got mad and I lost control and I zapped him and…"

"Hey, it's okay, brother. It's all right." Mabel reached out and gently scooped him into her arms. He was trembling, trying to curl up, trying to make himself smaller, trying to hide, "It'll be okay. It was an accident. We'll fix this, Dipper, I promise. We'll fix this. Just like we always do."

\---- -/o\\- -----

Bill woke up once, when they moved him from the ground and into the truck. But he quickly passed out again on the way to the hospital.

Part of Stan was grateful for the quiet; the demon hadn't been able to stop whining about how much pain he was in. But for the most part, Stan was angry. He was angry with Bill for pulling such a stupid stunt, he was angry with Dipper for getting them into this situation at all, and he was angry with himself for allowing it to get this far.

He'd warned them, he'd told them so many times to be careful, be cautious. Magic was deeper and more dangerous than they knew. He'd have thought after what had happened during their first summer six years ago they would have learned, they would have backed off. But if anything, those events had pushed them in deeper.

Or maybe it was just Dipper.

The kid was stubborn, ridiculously so. Stubborn and curious and that was never a good combination. He'd dived head first into the mysteries of Gravity Falls and hadn't come up for air since. Dipper lived and breathed the magic and mayhem of the town, prying into every nook and cranny, over turning rocks that were better left unturned, and sticking his nose in places where he could very well lose it. He experimented with spells and magic theory and, Stan hated to admit it, the kid had a talent for casting. He was smart. But the wrong kind of smart.

And that was why Stan was in the back of Soos' truck, bracing Dipper's limp body against his broad chest to stop it from being damaged further. The truck was barreling into the center of town, towards the hospital, completely ignoring the laws of traffic. Stan didn't care. His only concern was for the teenager in his lap.

"You stupid kid," The old man grunted, "What am I supposed to do with you? How am I supposed to protect you when you seem to go out of your way to get into trouble? You're gonna give me a heart attack, Dips. I don't know how much more of this I can take from you…"

\---- -/o\\- ----

By the time they'd ushered everyone out, locked the Shack, and taken Dipper's car to the hospital, Dipper had managed to calm down. He'd remained quiet on the drive over, either out of shock or because he didn't want Wendy to know what had happened (she couldn't see him and it would have looked as though Mabel were talking to thin air should they have started a conversation).

The hospital wasn't very busy and they found Stan and Soos perched uncomfortably in the waiting room. Mabel hurried over to Stan, Dipper perched somewhat listlessly on her shoulder, and scooted into the seat beside him. Wendy sat on Soos' other side, brow furrowed and hands clenched in her lap. Mabel looked at her great uncle and he met her gaze for a brief moment before dropping it to the floor,

"He's in surgery right now. They said it doesn't look too bad, a minor break. He should be fine. No other damages." Stan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was still wearing the eyepatch he donned for tourists, "He did wake up for a minute when they were moving him and shrieked like a banshee. Scared the hell outta the nurses and nearly punched the doctor in the eye. But they got him…sedated. Took him in. He'll be okay."

"Good. That's…that's good…" Mabel said weakly, sinking back in her seat, "That's really good." She reached up absently and cupped a hand around Dipper, trying to tug him down into her lap. But he shied away from her touch and drifted away to hover over Stan's crooked fez. There was an air of thoughtfulness about him, a tense thoughtfulness. It was the way he got when he was presented with a problem that seemed nigh impossible to solve, when the world threw a wall up in his way and dared him to try and get around it. And get around it he would; Dipper wouldn't back down, he was too stubborn, too curious, too driven. He'd find a way to fix this, to switch back with Bill, to set things right. That's just who he was.

"Should we call your parents?" Wendy jarred Mabel from her thoughts and she looked around to see the red head leaning past Stan and Soos, casting a worried look at Mabel.

"Um," Mabel hesitated, chewing on her lip. She glanced at Dipper but he was staring off into space again, "No. No, I think it should be okay. We don't need to worry them. Grunkle Stan just said he'd be fine so, you know, no need to call them and make them drive aaalllll the way out here for nothing, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Wendy murmured, "It's just kinda weird, you know? Dipper falling off the roof." She twisted the hem of her shirt into her fingers, frowning at the tile floor beneath her old boots, "We've climbed all over it a million times and he's never even slipped before, even when he was twelve."

"It's just like everything else," Stan grunted, "Things eventually go wrong. Kid was probably tired from all his spell flingin' the other day and didn't get any proper sleep. He probably hasn't slept properly since--" He cut himself off and his fists clenched in his lap.

A dark cloud hung over the group. They didn't talk about it, what had happened during that first summer six years ago. By some unspoken rule, they never brought it up, buried it underneath better memories and pretended none of it had ever happened. They would never name it. They would never acknowledge it. Of all the dark things in Gravity Falls, that was one nightmare they would rather forget.

They fell into silence after that. Occasionally a brief burst of chatter would bubble up between them ("How's school going, Wendy?" "Oh, good, good. Portland's a pretty cool place.") but it always died quickly. They were no stranger to being in a hospital waiting room, worrying about whatever mess Dipper had managed to get himself into. More than once the boy's own magic had snapped back in his face with sometimes disastrous results that had landed him (and sometimes Mabel too) in the ER.

But it was different this time. This time Dipper was stuck on another plane of existence and his body was possessed by pain-loving demon that didn't care what happened to Dipper's body as long as it got what it wanted. Now there was a real threat that no one knew how to fix, were not even sure they could fix it. Dipper was in danger, a real deadly danger. And it left a coldness inside them that was far too familiar, far too much like that first summer, a dread, a fear, a sick sensation that they would do anything to get rid of.

"Mr. Pines?"

Every single one of them (except Dipper) looked up at the nurse who'd stepped into the waiting room. She looked rather taken aback at seeing all of them there but she was used to such things and recovered quickly enough,

"Mr. Pines, your nephew is out of surgery and is recovering fine. His leg should heal fine with no side effects if he takes proper care of it."

"Can we see the little dude?" Soos asked hopefully.

"Well, he's resting right now. He's still unconscious from the anesthetic. But you can wait in his room for him to wake up, if you're quiet."

They all clambered up as quietly as possible and followed the nurse from the room. Leaving Dipper behind. He was gazing at nothing, still floating in the air over the seat that had been Stan's, the fabric of reality around his fizzling softly with ambient energies he couldn't control. 

It was Mabel who took pity on him. She came back into the waiting room, scooped him out of the air (much to the confusion of the nurse at the desk), and hurried out of the room after the rest of their strange, mismatched family.

"Dipper? You with us, bro?" She asked quietly as the followed the nurse down the glistening white hall. The triangle in her arms rippled and blinked his eye and then swiveled it around to look at her.

"Mabel?" His voice echoed eerily, a tone to it that was not his own. He was already getting further away, "What's…happening? I was trying to think of a solution and then…" He frowned, trying to remember, "I…I think I saw…Japan? Maybe China. I don't know. But I just kept watching and I saw stars and universes and I saw people's lives and I knew--Mabel, I _knew_ when they were going to die! And I saw how the world, how their lives, how everyone's lives, changed just by the simple decisions they were making! And--and I…I…" He trailed off and he felt colder than he had before, fear sending him shivering,

"I don't even know how long I was watching. I just kept staring. And I didn't even care, time meant nothing. It was amazing but it was also…terrifying." His little black hands came up and curled into her sweater, distorting the zombie unicorn on the front, "We gotta find a way to fix this, Mabel. And we gotta do it fast because I think--I think I might be starting to go a little bit insane here and that's even scarier than seeing some guy in Asia pick his nose."

Mabel snorted in amusement at the thought but quickly quelled it. Dipper was scared. _Dipper_ was _scared_. Sure, he was usually jumpy and paranoid and if you jumped out at him in the middle of the night he'd scream and throw something at you. But this was a different kind of scared. This was Dipper scared of _himself_. This was Dipper doubting himself. And Dipper never did that, especially when it came to magic.

"It'll be okay." Mabel whispered, hugging him tightly, "I promise, Dipper. It'll be okay. We've gotten out of worse than this. I know I just keep saying it, but…I swear, we'll fix this."

Dipper mumbled into her sweater and clung tighter to her. He was acting like a five year old. But Mabel couldn't blame him. She opened her mouth to reassure him again but bumped right into Wendy instead. The group had stopped moving at a door to one of the rooms and Mabel hadn't even noticed. She gave the redhead a thin smile and shrugged.

"You okay?" Wendy asked, "You look pretty pale." A sudden realization dawned on her face, "Oh god. He did just break his leg, right? It's not something else, is it? He didn't do that thing with the arrows and the fire again did he!?"

"N-no! No, it's nothing like that!" Mabel assured her quickly, "Things have just been…kinda nuts lately. Dipper wasn't taking very good care of himself. He and Grunkle Stan got into a fight again. And then this happens, so…you know…"

Wendy's features softened and she reached out to pat Mabel on the shoulder, "Yeah, kid, I know. Stuff like this happens. I'm sure Stan'll probably have some great revelation while sobbing at Dipper's bedside and they'll put aside their differences and Stan will realize Dipper's great destiny to save the world. Again."

"Yeah right." Dipper muttered from Mabel's sweater.

Mabel chuckled, "Haha, more likely he'd finally realize the potential for using magic as a tourist trap."

"I can hear you, ya' know." Stan grunted from the front of the group as he opened the door to the room. Wendy and Mabel shared a sheepish look as they all filed in as quietly as possible.

There lay Dipper (or his body anyway), breathing softly on the hospital bed. His left leg was in a thick cast and propped off the bed in a funny little rig, a few scrapes bruises were visible on his face and arms, and his hands and feet were lightly bandaged. He didn't look too terrible, just a little banged up. And tired

But then, Dipper always looked tired.

Stan sank into a chair with a groan that clearly said he was too old for this and Soos patted him on the shoulder. Wendy and Mabel wandered up to the bed, looking down at the stick figure beneath the blanket. Dipper twisted around in Mabel's arms and floated up to perch on her shoulder, looking down at his body.

"This is one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced," He admitted, "Am I really that skinny? And pimply? Maybe I do need to shower more…" His eye narrowed suddenly, the air around him turning hostile, "He's awake."

Sure enough, Bill's eyes opened a slit, squinting in the bright hospital lights. He groaned, blinked, and shifted on the blankets. His bleary gaze flickered from Wendy to Mabel and then to Dipper and a half-hearted sneer twisted his features,

"Well, well, well…" His voice was a rasp, sore from screaming, "Didn't think I'd wake up to a welcoming committee."

"Yeah, 'cause we were totally gonna let you wake up alone in a hospital room," Wendy rolled her eyes, "Don't be a doofus. We were worried about you. How's your leg?"

"Mm," Bill lifted his head a bit to look at his leg, shifting his weight experimentally, "Weird. Throbbing. Everything hurts." A half mad chuckle escaped him and he flopped back on the pillow, "Haha, heh, it all hurts. Everywhere. Every inch of this fleshy human prison hurts. It's _delightful_ ~"

Wendy stared at him and then looked around at Mabel who shrugged helplessly and muttered,

"He hit his head really hard."

Wendy chuckled lightly and reached down to ruffle Bill's hair. He gave her a lopsided, almost perfectly Dipper-ish grin. It looked almost normal.

But Dipper was glaring at Bill with such a ferocity that it was amazing nothing spontaneously burst into flame and Stan's hands were clenched tightly on the armrest's of the chair and Mabel felt a cold, worried pit in her stomach that wouldn't go away. This was anything but normal. Even when Soos strolled up and made a joke about Bill's leg being in a cast and Bill _laughed at it_ , it wasn't normal.

Dipper was scared, Mabel was worried, Stan was angry, and Bill Cipher was laughing.

Well, actually, that part was pretty much normal.

 


	6. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay in updating guys. This is usually the point where I start petering out, oops. Also I have two weeks left of school and it’s been super stressful so please be patient with me while I focus on getting my thesis and stuff done.  
> I know there isn’t a lot of content in this chapter but I hated leaving you folks hanging for so long so here’s some dumb filler rambling to keep you satisfied until I can get on this again. I’m really sorry I haven’t touched this in so long and that this is so short and everything!   
> Also everyone who comments, likes, and reblogs this, you’re all awesome. Your feedback encourages me and motivates me and makes me feel like working on this more! Thanks so much for sticking around and reading this, you’re the best! <3

_hodgepodge [noun]'; a confused mixture_

\----

Keeping Bill Cipher in the hospital for two days was a task in of itself.

However, keeping him from destroying Dipper's body further upon his release was a whole other ball game. Three weeks on crutches, Three weeks with limited mobility, three weeks of making sure he didn't overdose on medication or put too much weight on his leg. Someone had to be constantly keeping an eye on him; Dipper, Mabel, or Stan were always on babysitting watch.

Usually it was Dipper, hovering over Bill's head or perched on his shoulder or clinging to his back. Sometimes he was silent but most of the time he kept up a near constant stream of chatter. And usually Bill replied. Neither Grunkle Stan nor Mabel were very trusting with how cooperative Bill was suddenly being but they let it be. Better for him to be in one place, chatting with with Dipper, than to be wandering around on a broken leg. And better still, it gave Dipper something to do. If he wasn't talking, he was quiet, and if he was quiet he was usually staring off into the unfathomable depths of the universe. And every time he came back from that he seemed to lose a little bit more of himself. So if he was talking to Bill it meant he was still there, still with them, still Dipper Pines.

Mabel actually caught a snippet of their conversation one day and she wasn't sure she liked what she heard.

She'd been sent into the back by Stan to get more bumper stickers (and really how had they cleared out of those who was _buying_ them?). As she'd gone past the living room, she heard two familiar voices and had stopped. Not because she wanted to eavesdrop but because what Dipper had been saying had caught her attention,

"--sharp looking things. All black and, I dunno, sketchy looking. Is that a description? Does that make sense?"

"All black?" Bill asked with a genuine curiosity. He was leaning back in Stan's armchair, leg propped on the footrest, crutches leaning nearby. The tv was flickering some daytime talk show no one was paying attention to, "Kinda long fingered hands? Skittering looking?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Dipper was perched on the t-rex skull beside the chair, clinging to a can of soda (was he drinking it?), "But they were kind of insubstantial, I guess. See-through, like specters. Ghosts. Like they weren't all there or something."

"Those were Fear." Bill said matter-of-factly.

"Fear?"

"Yeah, kid, Fear. Get yer ears checked sometime."

"Are they from the mindscape?"

"Nah, they're from somewhere else. Somewhere I would highly recommend you don't go messing around with. Keep your gaze away from that place if you know what's good for you. Loootttssss of heroes die in that universe."

"Heroes? Universe?"

"You didn't put it together yet? I thought you were smarter than that, Pine Tree. You're seeing across universes, plain and simple." Bill's voice was almost dismissive, as if seeing into different dimensions was nothing more unusual than the weather.

"Oh." Dipper sounded less dismissive, that frightened waver coming back into his voice, "So, uh. How do I, you know, _not_ see into other universes?"

"Eh…" Bill hesitated. Actually hesitated. There was uncertainty in his eyes and he glanced away from Dipper, "I dunno what to tell you, kid. It's not something I can teach. I just kinda do it. All knowing being of pure energy and all that."

Mabel left quickly after that. But she still couldn't shake the extra knots that had tightened themselves into the ball of dread that already sat heavy in her chest.

\---- -/o\\- ----

Bill slept on the couch in Soos' break room on the first floor because no one dared trust him with stairs. And he slept a lot. Far more than Dipper himself usually did. In fact, he slept so much that the usual dark lines under Dipper's eyes had started to fade. And usually when he slept, Dipper himself was nowhere in sight. Which meant he was in the mindscape. Which meant they were talking. Again.

"What do you keep talking to the equilateral monster about?" Stan grunted one evening from his spot in the arm chair in front of the television. It had been a long day at the Shack and everyone was worn out.

"Uh, stuff." Dipper murmured evasively, voice echoing with dark undertones. He was flitting around the lightbulb, lazily chasing after a moth. Mabel was outside with Bill, forcing him to move and work with his crutches whether he wanted to or not, bullying him into keeping Dipper's body in shape.

"What stuff." Stan's voice grumbled from the arm chair and Dipper hid behind the lightbulb, sucking in its heat in an almost eager manner.

"Mindscape stuff. Dimensions. Magic." Dipper replied, watching the moth drift around to the television. He caught Stan glaring at him and let out a sigh, "Grunkle Stan, it's nothing dangerous. I think. Being in this body means I have Bill's powers but I don't know how to control them. I keep seeing stuff. Stuff from the mindscape, stuff from other places in the universe, stuff from other _dimensions_! It's scary. And I don't know who else to talk about this so I just…talk to Bill…"

"You could talk to me. You could talk to Mabel." Stan said gruffly, looking away from his great nephew, "I know we argue a lot and your sister's not the best at listenin' but we're still _here_ , kid. If you need somebody to talk to, someone who's human and understands what it's like to _be_ human, we're still right here. Just 'cause you look like an evil triangle doesn't mean you are one. Besides," He shot a hard look up at Dipper, "I know a thing or two about dimensions and other universes. Maybe not as much as your demon pal but I know how to handle the occasional wormhole."

Dipper stared at him quietly for a moment, still curled around the lightbulb. Then he mumbled "Bill's not my pal." and drifted down to sit on the top of the chair. There was a comfortable silence between the two as they watched the television and the moth that occasionally interrupted a scene by crawling across someone's face.

Then Dipper blurted, "I saw a universe where mankind burned up the earth and was sent into space to find a new home and ended up crash landing on a desert planet and there were angels and gunfire and blood. Lots of blood."

"Did you see the one with the guys who turn into giant monkeys under the full moon yet?"

"Um…no?"

"Then trust me, Dips, you're okay. Nothin's worse than seeing that universe."

"You've seen it?"

"Eh."

"Grunkle Stan, that's not an answer!"

Stan chuckled and Dipper frowned at him, "Relax, kid, I'm just messin' with you. But in all seriousness, have you asked him about switching back to normal?"

"Yeah," Dipper sighed heavily, actually sounding tired, "We've talked about it a lot, actually. Bill thinks he knows the spell to switch us back but he doesn't know if my body could withstand the force of the magic right now, what with the broken leg and all. He's kind of bored and getting really fed up with the itchy runes, though. He wants to switch back." Dipper scratched at the side of his triangle body and it made a strange echoing noise, "And, I mean, so do I. The problem is the casting. I certainly can't do it, not when I can't control Bill's powers. And Bill can't do it because he can't use my magic."

"So get your sister to do it. Mabel's good with magic too, right?"

"Mm, yeah, kinda." There was an uncertainty to Dipper's voice, the kind that said he didn't want to speak out of turn or hurt anyone's feelings, "But her magic's kind of a different brand, you know. She's good at the domestic-y stuff. Anti-cold spells and warm fuzzies 'n junk. The one time she tried a real full blown defensive spell…well…you remember that big hole in the lot?"

"That was _Mabel_?"

"Yyyeeeaaahhhh, kinda. Yeah. She hasn't really messed with that stuff since. It's kind of more my schtick."

Stan grunted thoughtfully and silence fell between them. After a while, Dipper's gaze started to slide out of focus, his attention drifting away from the real world around him. Energy fizzled around him and Stan looked up, frowning when he saw his great nephew almost literally spacing out. He reached up and snapped his fingers in front of Dipper,

"Ey, kid, don't look too deep into the void. Sometimes stuff looks back."

"What?" Dipper blinked and looked down at his great uncle, "Oh. Y-yeah, sorry. I can't help it. Sometimes my mind just wanders."

Stan frowned at him in a thoughtful manner, "You scared?"

Dipper didn't answer right away, tearing his gaze away from Stan to stare at his own tiny hands curling around each other. His shape flickered, fading out and then back in again as if he was going to disappear into the mindscape. But then, in a soft, low voice, he said,

"Yeah. I'm scared. I'm really, really scared." 

\---- -/o\\- ----

“You’re not even trying!”

“I’m tired! This body is tired! It’s dark out!”

“Stop whining! You broke your leg, you have to deal with the physical therapy!”

“This isn’t physical therapy,” Bill grunted, leaning heavily on his crutch, “This is torture. And I should know, I’m an expert.”

Mabel had been working him almost every night for the past couple of weeks, forcing him to move and exercise. She’d managed to work him down to only using one crutch and he was kind of wobbly on it and had tripped over Waddles once but he was managing. Sometimes his mannerism matched Dipper’s so well, Mabel could almost pretend it was actually her brother. Almost.

“Well maybe if you hadn’t been climbing out a second story window you wouldn’t have to deal with this torture.” She said icily, crossing her arms.

“If Stan hadn’t locked me in the room I wouldn’t have had to climb out the window in the first place.” Bill retorted, sticking his nose up at her.

“If you had been more observant with your one stupid eye maybe this would never have happened at all.”

Bill’s expression contorted into a furious snarl. He bared his teeth, eyes blazing with anger, and hobbled closer to her, leaning into her face, “Maybe if your idiot brother hadn’t _bound me_ I wouldn’t have been in that room in first place!”

“Dipper is not an idiot,” Mabel said firmly, fighting to keep her temper in check. She would not let Bill get a rise out of her, she would not give him the satisfaction, “He’s smart and you know it. You’re just mad because you’re not getting your way for once.”

Bill floundered. He spat and writhed and struggled and finally just made a frustrated noise at her and turned away. He hobbled over to the front porch and eased down onto the couch with a grunt, scowling out into the darkening forest. Mabel whistled for Waddles and climbed up to join him. Waddles immediately wriggled under Bill’s long legs, propping his injured one off the floor, and made satisfied squealing noises. Mabel flopped onto the couch beside Bill and followed his gaze out into the night.

“You can switch back, right?” Mabel asked suddenly and Bill glanced at her.

“How many times do I have to say it? I can’t do it. But it can be done.” The demon scratched irritatedly at his chest, frowning either at his own words or at the irritation caused by the runes on Dipper’s body, “And before you ask your next question, _yes_. I do actually want to get out of this ridiculous meat suit. It’s been too long already. The mindscape is probably in shambles without me and Pine Tree’s on the brink of insanity.”

Mabel was quiet for a moment. Waddles snuffled and rolled over onto his side, jostling Bill’s leg, making the demon hiss between clenched teeth. Apparently pain had stopped being hilarious a long time ago.

“Are you sure Dipper’s body isn’t strong enough to do it right now?”

“Mm…” Bill seemed to consider it, “Well, it’s healed a lot faster than normal thanks to the kid’s spell work. Kinda handy in this case.” He shrugged and that sly grin crossed his features, “No skin off my back to give it a shot. Switching now isn’t gonna hurt me any. Wanna give it a shot, Shooting Star?”

“…you’re not pulling me leg, are you?”

“You want me to? I know the best way to just twist ‘em right off!”

“No! Ew! Why do you do that!?” Mabel shoved him and Bill swatted at her, “Geez, why can’t you just give a straight answer for once!”

“Demon~” Bill said in a sing-song voice, twirling a finger in the air as if conducting an orchestra.

“Uhg, the _worst_ demon.” Mabel grunted, leaning back in her seat, “Look, I just want to fix this. All of us do. So if you can switch back then why haven’t you done it?”

“No one to cast it.” The demon shrugged, “I can’t do it, Pine Tree can’t do it. And, no offense Shooting Star, but you’re no caster. Not to your brother’s level anyway. Find someone who can whip up some major mumbo jumbo and we’ll start talkin’ shop. Until then you’re stuck with me.”

“Charming.” Mabel said dryly. But she was already thinking, planning, going through the endless list of people she could turn to for help. Because Mabel Pines never sat still for long and she never gave up. Especially when it came to her family.


End file.
